Stage 1

11:00

Stage 1

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Algorithmic technologies that rely on data don’t necessarily support a social world that many of us want to live in. We must grapple with the biases embedded in and manipulation of these systems, particularly when so many parts of society are dependent on sociotechnical systems.

Makerspace indoor

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There are so many niche needs related to health & wellbeing which cannot be filled by established commercial solutions. That applies to the global north and even more to the global south. However, digital fabrication and ICTs combined allow for co-developing open source (connected) hardware solutions that are designed for production in makerspaces to fill this gap.

Makerspace outdoor

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Once freed of the tyranny of the Twitter timeline, how we would look to ourselves? How a custom made data visualization could raise awareness on our echo chambers and the ones in our public institutions and in our elected officials? In this data clinic, the participants will be able to export/scrap and visualize in original ways, their own public Twitter data (or the one of public institutions and elected officials) to answer such questions and they also will raise and share new ones and tentative answers.

rp:International Space

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After having had an inspiring session at the re:publica Thessaloniki last year with insights from Greece, Italy, Croatia and Belgium - we go on with listening, debating and questioning the challenges and chances of digital societies in Europe.

Stage 1

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Chelsea Manning in an intimate interview situation with Geraldine de Bastion and Theresa Züger.
One year after her release, we aim to discuss about hippies and the Silicon Valley; the social, technological and economic impact of artificial intelligence, practical applications of machine learning and the responsibility of developers in regards to technology and politics. Also:Hannah Arendt, civil disobedience, radical politics and the consequences of an uncontrollable state power.

Stage 2

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In the coming years, the increasing automation of tasks will cost jobs whilst at the same time new job profiles emerge in the digital sector. This trend changes how people live and work worldwide and will disrupt major industries in developing countries. It truly is the end of work as we know it. So how can we ensure that developing countries will be fine? Is it enough to provide access and digital skills? We want to leverage partnerships and prepare governments to react to these developments.
[Partnersession]

Stage 4

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2 billion people worldwide are without a passport. Your identity acts as enabler to accessing education, jobs, financial inclusion, and many other governmental and business services. But how far can the individual decide what happens with their data?
India's centralized identity solution Aadhaar has shown great merits, but its centralized architecture poses risks of data leaks.
This session discusses blockchain-based solutions for self-sovereign identity, looks at their potential decentralizing personal data management from the perspective of German and European principles of privacy and informational self-determination, and contextualizese their potential use for vulnerable populations in developing economies and refugees.

Stage 5

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1 billion people, 15 percent of the world’s population, are people living with some form of disability. Disability is a natural part of the human condition, and barriers to access are a unifying factor for people, regardless of where you live in the world. Activists and advocates for the world’s disability related issues have found a unique and powerful home on the social media platform of Twitter, and using it to connect, educate, and share opportunities to create and enact social change.

Stage 8

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A non-conventional city government, rolling out an avant garde plan in the last seven years, invites you to a refreshing journey of creativity, innovation and sun. A dynamic innovation ecosystem is under way in the city, as an emerging group of inspired, globally-focused and highly educated entrepreneurs offer unprecedented investment opportunities in software, energy, engineering, agrotech, digital health, security and they help the country on the path to recovery.

Stage 4

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The rise of automation has always driven new forms of work since the beginning of human civilization. Each time a new era is born it seems like the technological shock will end work. The anxiety this time is at a fever pitch. Yet we will need more things - that fit us better, and waste less - than ever before. There is plenty of work to do. Join and explore the potential for machine/human learning and play as a means of helping individuals and organizations thrive.
[Partnersession]

Stage 5

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Robots, coding, scraping are coming to the newsroom - do we need to be afraid? Bots might not take our jobs, and not everyone has to be a coder. But journalism has already changed, and will continue to do so. We are two journalists and former fellows at the Reuters Institute in Oxford. We want to discuss how journalists and geeks can collaborate in a data-driven world. In our lightning talk, we highlight challenges and chances of data and robot journalism.

Stage 8

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Under the hood of Internet services (e-mail, WWW, social media...) exists the world of numbers, addresses, protocols. These "common resources" are governed through the consensus building processes that are also familiar to hackers and anarchists.
With the Internet's ever increasing impact on the economical, political and social aspects of our lives, learn how YOU can take part deciding the future of the the free and open Internet.
Acronyms: IPv6,IANA,IETF,ISP,DNS,BGP,RIPE NCC,ICANN,RFC,NOG...

Makerspace indoor

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Amongst essential technology developments Open Source Ecology Germany is focusing on small scale forms of energy autonomy. By using modular and scalable elements like the UniProKit, the SolarBox is a key project to give maximum flexibility for mobile energy solutions. Open sourcing the development and creating OER materials means this kind of technology becomes an accelerator for innovation and empowers global tech solutions and Access to Skills and Knowledge #ASK. Let's build it together!

Stage 2

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There has been much recent discussion about the impacts of new technology on work. There is a fear that robotics and computerization can displace and dislocate workers, and possibly lead to mass unemployment. While the technologies are new, this basic dynamic is hundreds of years old, going back at least to the industrial revolution.
The impact of automation on workers is often presented in a mechanical or deterministic way, as if technology determines economics. But really, the future of work in the context of automation is always a political question.

Stage 3

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Despite the importance of an active participation of women in the development of digital and mobile technologies, only 9% of all global venture capital deals involved female-led ventures. As technology and innovation progresses in all parts of the world, it needs to be ensured that women and girls are part of this transformation. There is an urgent need to create gender-inclusive technology and promote women’s participation in the design and development of digital solutions, products and services.
[Partnersession]

Stage 7

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The digital ecosystem is driven by big platforms - and behind the scenes by the online advertisement industry. To understand how the digital info sphere is organized, we need to deconstruct the workings of digital advertisement. With his analysis, Dipayan Ghosh will reveal the status quo of this entanglement and propose future steps to find a balance between common good and commerce in the digital world.

14:00

Media Cube

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Volumetric VR - video featuring moving images of real people and then digitized as a 3D asset - is the new upcoming thing in the world of Virtual Reality.
The Berlin-based companies Trotzkind and reallifefilm international share insides of the advantages, technical obstacles and which technologies that can be combined for a realistic experience.

Stage 1

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Throughout 1980s our collective political memory has been erased and the humanity was politically infantilised. The masses were taught to be helpless in the face of political decisions. The new rising right-wing populism came at this moment where the political actors were transformed into passive audiences of dominant economic and political narrative. The cure to our age is to remember the times when were able political agents who are capable of changing the political currents. We have to remember the entire story of recent decades to be able to break the pattern in today's world and remind ourselves our moral and philosophical strength.

Makerspace indoor

Makerspace outdoor

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Time to act and create more Fe:male Digital Footprints. By creating online tutorials that explain technologies or how to fix stuff from a feminist perspective we want to counteract existing macho culture in technology presentation.
Today is the official kick-off for the she*fix youtube channel project. The whole day we will be in or near the FabMobile and are ready and happy to discuss she*fix with you and support you in making a she*fix tutorial. In the workshop, we will present our idea and approach and show our meta-tutorial - the tutorial about making a tutorial. We invite participant to join the movement!

Stage 1

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Today few terms are more central to policy, planning, or economics then the term “resilience”. From urban planning to stress testing in economic markets, we have come to understand systems as constantly in a state of crisis that needs perpetual management. This talk traces the rise of resilience as a central epistemology and practice in environmental management, urban development, and finance. I will argue that resilience has become the dominant discourse by which time and uncertainty are currently being managed in computation, finance, and design. Moreover, resilience has become a new logic making the planet, and its living populations, computationally measurable and representable, and amenable to new forms of technical manipulation and action. This talk will be a whirlwind tour through the merger of cybernetics, ecology, and finance that are currently reshaping the planet from extraction infrastructures to smart cities.

Stage 3

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Digital technologies make startups a global phenomenon. Entrepreneurs create innovative solutions in Lagos or Jakarta, as much as Berlin or Silicon Valley. Startup ecosystems grow around the world and entrepreneurial sparks light up providing hope and opportunities for millions. But what is needed to support entrepreneurs? What is the current state of startup ecosystems and what can be done to enhance them? We will discuss this with ecosystem experts from different world regions.
[Partnersession]

Stage 9

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Sound and performance artist Jessica Ekomane seeks physical effects by playing with rhythmical structures and adding psychoacoustic elements to her compositions. Researcher Anita Jóri believes that her work is related to Vilém Flusser’s thought on technology. The aim of this moderated performance lecture is to unbox sound and its relation to machines, scenography and environment with the help of media theory.

Stage J

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Your brainwaves will shape tomorrow’s world. Let’s explore how.
Brain-Computer Interaction allows us to harness the raw power of our brain activity to create and interact with the environment around us, beyond the limitations of our bodies and current interaction paradigms. With this knowledge in mind, what would you want to do?
Let’s embark on a journey together to materialize the power of our mind and tap into its potential to create powerful and immersive experiences.

Stage T

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Algorithms make decisions affecting us in ways ranging from what we see on social media to how we are targeted by advertisers and law enforcement. Badly designed algorithms using biased or flawed datasets can violate people’s rights. Given such power, there is a critical need to build consensus around standards for algorithm creation and use to ensure they are accountable to the public interest. This workshop will brainstorm best practices for algorithmic transparency by internet companies.

Stage 9

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We Makes Waves joins forces with other music activists to discuss the pros and sometimes cons of the digital safer spaces and creating IRL events in which to promote and empower each other in the spaces in-between. With the hope of inclusion in IRL, is it possible that the spaces we create digitally become overly complicated because of individual wishes and frameworks that we make up in order to create and bring it out in the event?

Lightning box

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Digital technologies play an ever bigger role in economic and social development around the globe. However, in an ever more connected and digitalized world, development organizations and NGOs need to make sure that the use of technology and data is led by responsibility and accountability, in line with standards such as the Principles for Digital Development.

Makerspace indoor

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Natural disasters can be devastating. In 2010 90,000 people were killed during an earthquake in Hati, in 2015 6,000 in Nepal and in 2016 16,000 in Ecuador. Each time it took emergency services teams more then 24 hours to reach the trapped and injured. Medical teams were challenged by access to effected areas due to road blocks, broken infrastructure and vast geographic distance. At Cadus e.V, we want to change this. In April we will be testing the first ever civilian airdrop. We want to parachute our personnel and specially designed medical boxes into hard to reach areas, shortening the time it takes medical teams to reach the injured and trapped after disaster strikes.

Meet Up 1

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Citizen science is rapidly increasing in popularity in the academia as well as civil society. Networks between scientific institutions, NGOs, media and policy makers have played an important role in the development and professionalization of citizen science. We invite you to discuss the future opportunities of citizen science in a digital society and explore the possibilities of networks in this process.

Stage 1

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In her recent book Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem.

Stage 4

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Facebook and Google suck up our personal data and turn it into fake news, engagement algorithms and “psychographic messaging” fed by Russian bots and digital stealth operatives trolling for Brexit and Donald Trump's election. A battle is looming over who will control this sea of data and artificial intelligence, with the needs of the public interest and private, Internet-based businesses often in conflict. What can be done to promote innovative policy approaches about the use of Big Data, and to develop a social economy for the digital age?

Stage T

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Our economic models place “self-interested” right at their centre – in direct opposition to nearly all moral traditions. How do we respond when reality cannot prove true the promise of private vice delivering public virtue? We compromise, compartmentalisation, or pursue doomed attempts to reject, though not resolve, this tension. Let’s time travel to historic corporations and the ancient polis, to envisage a more ambitious and idealistic future for enterprise.

Stage 3

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With around 2 million pilgrims travelling to the holy city of Mecca every year during the five days of the Hajj season and performing the rites in a very confined space, the logistics of the Muslim pilgrimage pose an extreme challenge to the authorities. This talk will look at some of the ways in which the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia has digitized the Hajj and discuss how every technical solution improves the overall organization but at the same time also creates new problems.

17:00

Makerspace indoor

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Girls in tech, raise your hands and join us in this workshop!
Let's exchange our experiences and opinions about our role in the digital world, asking ourselves: What is your status in this field now? Where do you want to take it in the near future? And from this exchange, we will fabricate light patches that glow in the dark to wear our own manifest, expressing your visions and encouraging more girls and women to join us in this important fight for diversity and inclusion in the tech world.

Stage 1

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Every day, we hear new stories about how the Internet destroys society. It’s filled, it seems, with military-grade psyops and discriminatory algorithms. Why? Rather than look fondly back to “cyberspace,” this talk argues today’s situation stems from misguided assumptions about bodiless communication. It further reveals connections between segregation, eugenics and current network tools. To create more just futures, it calls for collaborations across the all disciplines, industry, and activists.

Stage 2

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2014 China’s government announced the implementation of big data based social credit systems (SCS). The SCS will rate online and offline behavior to create a score for each user. One SCS is planned to become mandatory in 2020. Functioning on gamification, these systems combine powerful tools to influence its users.
The lecture will review the current state of governmental and private SCS, the ideological background, the power of (big) data, cybernetics and gamification in- and outside of China.

Stage 4

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The idea of Open Science is to enable more people to make valuable contributions to scientific research and develop solutions collectively, especially in low-resource settings. Due to pricey lab equipment much research output has been restricted to a few highly funded laboratories. In countries like Egypt and Cameroon, innovators and scientists are fixing, hacking and recreating tools using digital fabrication. Discuss with us Open Science Hardware and laboratory equipment as a common good.

Stage 5

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When humans imagined robots and computers in the workplace, they have envisioned them as servants and supporters of mankind. However, in recent years, many online platforms, such as Uber or Amazon Mechanical Turk, are “employing” myriads of human workers for tasks supervised, controlled and managed by algorithms. How does it feel like when your boss is an AI algorithm? How do human workers react when the algorithm maltreats them? And how can platforms enable workers in platform mediated-work to regain their voice and autonomy? In this session, Lior Zalmanson and Thomas Gegenhuber will share their insights from their recent academic studies and outline future directions for labor relations in platform-mediated work.

Stage 8

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Computer vision is becoming one of the focus areas in artificial intelligence (AI) to enable computers to see and perceive like humans.
In a collaboration with the Royal Holloway University, we applied deep learning to locate small scale mines in Ghana using satellite imagery, scaled training using Kubernetes and investigated their impact on surrounding populations & environment.

Stage 9

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What potential lies at the intersection of Datafication, Music Cities and Smart Cities? How can the strategic development of a city support the creation of economic, ecologic and social value with regard to the music industry, making the city smarter and more livable at the same time? This panel brings together experts from urban development, the music industry, and technology developers in order to explore how exactly these concepts can be merged.

Stage J

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Following Designing Tomorrow, re:publica’s multi-year collaboration with the Utopia festival and inspired by the talks on the Cancel the Apocalypse track we will embark on a collaborative experiment aimed at expanding our political imagination. Together we will learn methodologies and practice thinking in terms of plural “futures” rather than a single monolithic “future”. The workshop would be led by a team well versed in speculative political and creative practices. We’re looking forward to designing the futures with you.

Stage T

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The Open Movement has strong players like Wikimedia, Creative Commons, and Mozilla. We share a similar mindset, attend the same events and advocate for an “open by default” world. In 2017, we started a conversation around three questions: How do we make the open internet revolution irresistible? How do we build the community of the open? And how, as activists of the free and open web, do we talk to non-technologists about our world? We’d like to continue this discussion at rp18 – with you!

Lab1886 Truck

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The electric car has arrived. The automotive revolution is underway. And yet the mobility environment we live in, remains one characterized by uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Range anxiety both in terms of battery capacity and charging infrastructure is the most frequent topic when the conversation turns to e-mobility: Is my car’s battery fully charged? Where can I recharge my car? How far can I drive with my car? For consumers, these questions are often the major issue preventing them from purchasing of an electric vehicle.

POP-up Room

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What happens when reality and virtual reality intersect? Beyond games, sci-fi and straight up science, how do we code VR in the non-fiction spaces of art? journalism? documentary? What does VR really mean for these realities? What are the limitations and ethics of that code? What does it mean to ‘construct’ reality? To engineer emotions?

Stage 8

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History has observed a series of revolutions — scientific, industrial, and technological — each building on the social and economic changes of the last. Simultaneously, the cultures of science and the humanities have drifted further apart, steadily eroding tech’s understanding of — and awareness of — its “disruption”. This talk examines computer science and philosophy to express the pressing need for those in tech to appreciate humanities, and to incorporate them in their work and culture.

Meet Up 1

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What happens if you give digital changemakers from Africa, Europe and other parts of the world a chance to exchange and collaborate on equal terms? Let’s join the African-European YouthLab and explore together how young people around the world can advocate for stronger, impactful and context-specific youth involvement. You have ideas, we have ideas, let’s meet up and “re:shape” the digital transformation by discussing how local initiatives and like-minded people can connect better in the digital age.

Stage 5

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Programming is the new literacy.
Learning how to code is now an integral part of the curriculum in most schools nowadays. In the global south, different models are being used to improve youth skills for the future of the work and the work-less ages to come.
What are the different perspectives from Latin America, Philipines and Ghana?

Stage 9

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This talk will present the Internet of Musical Things (IoMusT), which refers to the network of computing devices embedded in physical objects dedicated to the production and/or reception of musical content. The IoMusT ecosystem gathers interoperable devices and services that connect performers and audiences to support performer-performer and audience-performers interactions. Two novel classes of IoMusT devices, Smart Instruments and Musical Haptic Wearables, will be presented along with examples of their applications.

Stage J

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This session will provide a hands-on experience into machine-generated music for video games. After a short presentation about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can enable people with no musical skills to create highly immersive soundtracks, attendees will try a Virtual Reality (VR) experience with music generated in realtime by an AI music system called Melodrive. While in the virtual world, attendees will be able to change the emotional state of the music in realtime.

Stage T

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In the wake of digital colonisation, increasingly intricate algorithms scout for patterns in the data we generate. The ever-expanding archive not only reflects our values and society—it shapes new cultures, behaviours, and beliefs. We posit that future rituals and algorithms can be rehearsed through performing arts, and propose an intervention that is part discussion, part social experiment, and strives to explore the combined functionalities of rituals and artificial intelligence as mechanisms for social computing.

Stage 8

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During the German federal election 2017 journalists and experts sparked a debate about the methods and threats of data-driven campaigning in Germany where facts were mixed up with fiction. Based on sixteen in-depth expert interviews with German campaign strategists of CDU and SPD I will discuss both parties´ data-driven strategies. Due to budgetary, legal restraints, party structures and individual decisions or knowledge they are less precise and sophisticated than journalistic coverage implied.

Stage 8

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Amazon, Facebook, Google, Uber – an increasing part of our digital infrastructure is controlled by a small number of companies. Are there alternatives to these companies who make profits from our data and our willingness to share?
[Partnersession]

Stage 9

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This talk examines present and future impacts of machine learning applied to music, with a focus on a practical understanding and use of machine learning in the music making process. It will look into tools for composition, synthesizing audio and imitating styles, smart musical instruments, up to matching the listener with the perfectly fitting song. As algorithms invade every aspect of the music creation process, we are asked to reconsider what it means to be a musician in the 21st century.